Katie: The Early Years
by KennedyRox992
Summary: You know Katie's five now, but how did she get to where she is today? Riley shares some of his favorite memories of when Katie was really little.
1. Second Birthday

AN: These are flashback stories. In reality, Katie is still five, but here Riley is reminiscing about when she was littler. As you obviously know, Katie, Taylor, and Bethany are the only characters of my own creation, and I don't own _National Treasure_ or any other media mentioned in my stories.

**Katie's Second Birthday**

"Riley, do you have Toys 'R' Us in that car?" Taylor asked as I pulled into their driveway for Katie's second birthday. The trunk of my car was overflowing with gifts.

"Nothing's too good for my little tiger," I said.

"What'd you get her? The Mars rover?!"

I laughed. "No way, that thing's too busy proving to the world that aliens actually exist. They said I was crazy, but I'll prove them all wrong!!!"

Taylor stared at me. "Riley, you would," he remarked. I smiled as we walked into the house.

I entered the kitchen, and there were Bethany and Katie. Bethany was putting the finishing touches on Katie's birthday cake (chocolate with light pink frosting), and Katie was sitting in a booster seat, waving around a white mixing spoon.

"Hey, Riley," Bethany said.

"Beth, you wouldn't believe how many gifts my baby brother brought," Taylor said. "He must have bought the entire toy store or something."

Bethany looked at me. "You really do love your niece, Riley," she said.

"I sure do, Beth," I told her, and sat down on the floor at Katie's eye level. "Hey, tiger," I said to Katie.

Katie looked at me and broke into an enormous grin. "Riley tiger," she said very clearly. "Katie Riley tiger."

"Katie is Riley's tiger," I repeated. "You are! You are my tiger, Katie." She giggled.

Taylor smiled. "The first sentence Katie learned to say was 'Katie Riley tiger.' Now she says it constantly."

Bethany nodded. "We can even hear her saying it through the baby monitor after we put her to bed," she said.

That made me smile. "Katie is my tiger," I said, putting her on my lap. She beamed up at me. "'Tar war," she babbled.

"Star Wars? OK," I said. I held her up in the air and began to hum the _Star Wars_ theme song, and flew her all around the kitchen and living room as Taylor and Bethany watched happily. After a few minutes, I finally sat down in a kitchen chair and put Katie on my knee. "You like that, tiger?" I asked her. Then I tickled her toes, and she giggled.

"Why don't you go get Katie's gifts," Taylor said.

It took three trips, but I managed to get all the gifts into the house. Katie's eyes got wider and wider with every armload of stuff I carried in for her. When everything was in, I gave her her first present.

"She may need a bit of help opening it," Bethany said with a smile.

But she didn't. She tore off the paper and revealed a little toy music-box thing shaped like a TV. When you wound it up, it played "It's a Small World." Taylor and Bethany looked at the gift in Katie's hands, then gave me a look that plainly said, "You're trying to kill us, aren't you?"

I shrugged. "It's her favorite song," I said sheepishly.

Next up was a little book called _So Happy._ I had no way of knowing how much she would grow to adore that book. Then came one of those noisy storybooks - this one was Winnie the Pooh - that garnered another why-must-you-torture-us look from my brother and his wife. Then a pair of pink Converse for toddlers, a framed Calvin & Hobbes strip, and a stuffed tiger that she automatically named Riley. You name it, I had gotten it for her.

Later, Katie started a new birthday tradition - a frosting fight. After caking herself, she smeared frosting on my own, Taylor's, and Bethany's faces. Pretty soon, the four of us had pink frosting covering our faces. Now, it's never officially Katie's birthday without at least one frosting fight. Afterward, the three adults (well, two adults and one big kid) chased Katie all around the house and tickled her till she dissolved in hysterics.

Katie's second birthday was one of the first times that she and I really connected. Without the events of my little tiger's second birthday, all the other amazing times we've had probably wouldn't be quite as amazing.

AN: Please review!


	2. Someone to Come Home To

AN: You know it all. _National Treasure_ isn't mine, only Katie, Taylor, and Bethany are my own creation, no other media mentioned is mine, I'm obsessed with Riley. You get it.

"Could've had a bigger house," I said to Ben and Abigail. I could hear them laughing as I drove away. But I could care less. I was going to go see Katie for the first time since we'd found the Templar treasure. Taylor had told me that my little tiger - now three years old - had not slept in days. "I want Riley," she had kept crying.

Neither Taylor nor Bethany had told Katie that I would be coming over. It was supposed to be a surprise for her. I smiled to myself as I pulled my brand-new red Ferrari into Taylor and Bethany's driveway.

I rang the doorbell and Bethany answered. "She's watching SpongeBob," Bethany told me, and led me to the TV room. Katie was lying on her stomacxh on the carpet, watching Squidward butcher some song on his clarinet. I sat down on the floor behind her.

"Is that you, tiger?" I asked.

Katie whirled around. "RILEY!!!!" she shrieked, and jumped into my lap. I gave her a big hug. "I'm so glad to see you," I said to her. Katie's smile could have lit up Alaska during one of those six-month dark periods. "I'm your little tiger again," she said.

"You still were my little tiger when I was gone. I just wasn't around to tell you that you were," I told her. She giggled.

"So how are you, tiger?" I asked.

"I was okay, but now I'm great," she said with a smile. "I really, really missed you."

"I missed you too," I said to her. "I thought of you every day, tiger. I even got you something."

Katie smiled. I reached into my pocket and pulled out a small teddy bear. Its t-shirt had the Liberty Bell on it and read _Philadelphia._ "Thanks, Riley," Katie said.

"Mommy and Daddy tried to sing me the firefly song when you were gone," Katie said to me. "But I like it the bestest when you sing it."

Our song. Katie's special song. _Come In Through the Firefly Darkness_, a song I'd sung in high school choir, was the only song that could get Katie to calm down and go to sleep. I smiled and began to sing.

"_Open up your door, my friend,  
__And let me come in,  
Come in from the firefly darkness  
To hear your stories again,  
I have wandered through this land  
From end to end,  
I've come home through the firefly darkness  
To sing with you again._

_Sing songs of wonder,  
Sing of life begun,  
Of fireflies and full moons  
Over meadows green,  
Sing songs of children,  
Growing towards the sun,  
Like the wild new lilies  
Of the spring, the spring._"

Katie beamed. "The firefly song," she said happily. "I love that song so much. I love you so much, Riley."

"I love you too, tiger," I said. "Guess what."

"What, Riley?"

"I'm gonna get ya. Riley's gonna get ya!!"

Katie giggled and giggled, even before I began to tickle her. But when I did, she wriggled around, laughing and shrieking. Katie doesn't let a visit with me go by without me tickling her. She LOVES it, practically more than life. And I love it too. I love to see her laugh. I had missed that when we were out looking for the treasure. Before that, I hadn't gone much more than a week without seeing her. Being without my little niece was torture, but I knew she couldn't have come with Ben, Abigail, and me. She was too little to understand, and Ian woulda probably scared the crud out of her.

It doesn't matter if we find the Templar treasure, Cibola, or who knows what else. My little tiger, Kaitlyn Jessica Poole, is treasure enough.

AN: Hope this works for Chapter 2! Please review!


	3. Katie, Ben, and Abigail

AN: I don't think I gotta say this all again. This chapter is dedicated to NewJonasLover11, for reviewing the first two chapters.

"_And it's sweet, sweet, sweet victory, yeah!  
And it's ours for the taking, it's ours for the fight!"_

"Riley, how do you know all the words?" Katie, now four, asked.

I nudged under her chin. "'Cause of you, tiger," I told her. "Without you, I wouldn't even watch SpongeBob."

Just then, the doorbell rang. I got up. It was Ben and Abigail. "Riley, are you busy?" Ben asked.

"Kinda," I said. "Katie's over here."

Abigail smiled. "Can we come in, at least?"

"OK," I said. I led them into the living room. Katie had not moved from her spot on the couch, in front of SpongeBob. "So this is Katie Poole," Ben said. Katie looked at Ben. "Hi," she said.

"Hi, I'm Ben, and this is Abigail," Ben said. I sat down on the couch and Katie climbed into my lap. "You're Ben Gates?"

"Yep."

"Riley told me about when you guys founded some awesome treasure, under a church in New York. That sounds so cool. I wish I could have found it."

"It was cool," Ben said. "Everyone said I was crazy for believing in the treasure. But your uncle believed me. Without him, I never would have gotten as far as I did."

Katie looked at me in awe. "Why did people say you were crazy?" she asked Ben. She seemed very interested.

"The story of the treasure says it was buried to keep the bad guys from getting it," Ben explained. I recognized this as what Patrick had tried to tell Ben after we had escaped the National Archives. "People tried to tell me that the story was made up to make the bad guys search for treasure instead of fighting us."

Abigail smiled. "But your uncle didn't believe that," she said to Katie. I smiled. "So he joined Ben to search for it. I'll never forget the one thing under the church that your uncle loved."

_"Riley, are you crying?"_

_"Look. Stairs."_

"Why did you love the stairs so much?" Katie asked me as I blushed.

"The stairs were gonna take me back to my little tiger," I said, tapping her nose. She giggled. "There was no other way of getting back up, and I wanted to see you again. It had been too long."

"How cute," Abigail said. Ben nodded his approval. "Well, we were just in the neighborhood and wanted to say hi. We'll see you later."

"Bye," Katie said. "See ya," I said.

They left. "So that's Ben and Abigail," Katie said. "They're nice."

I smiled. "They are," I told her. "Wanna get back to SpongeBob?"

"OK," she said. Then I tickled her tummy, and she giggled. Pretty soon, we were reduced to hysterics over the Campfire Song Song, sea bears, waving flashlights from side to side, and wearing sombreros in a goofy fashion.

AN: This is sorta short, but NewJonasLover has been requesting this. Please review!


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